


Terrariums of Friendship

by YamatoMyTomato (KinoKahn)



Series: Kakayama Week 2015 [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: KakaYama - Freeform, KakaYama Week 2015, M/M, slight sai x sakura
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-21 10:52:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4826384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KinoKahn/pseuds/YamatoMyTomato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Naruto's birthday fast approaching, Sai must turn to his teammates in order to get the perfect present.  And when Sai comes up short on cash, Kakashi happily commissions a painting from him.</p>
<p>Kakayama Week 2015 - Day One: Team 7</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terrariums of Friendship

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ship-week themed fanfiction. First fic for Kakayama Week 2015, theme: Team 7.

“Naruto’s birthday is in a few weeks,” Sai announced. They were taking a collective bathroom break, and Naruto was still tucked away in the bushes, proudly taking the longest out of anyone.

“October 10th I believe,” Yamato said. He folded his arms and nodded solemnly.

Sai looked from Yamato to Kakashi. “Kakashi, what are you going to get Naruto?”

Kakashi shrugged. “I’ll buy him vegetables or something. Kid needs to eat more than ramen.”

“It’s true,” Sakura chimed in, “But also Kakashi gives terrible gifts. I usually take Naruto out for lunch or dinner, sometimes I even let him convince himself it’s a date. No kisses or handholding though.”

Sakura folded her arms and nodded seriously just like Yamato had.

Sai looked back to Yamato, who held up his hands. “Don’t look at me for ideas, I’m going to be pitching in on the birthday vegetables.”

Sai sighed and looked down at his sandals. He wiggled his toes and tried to think of what Naruto might want for his birthday. Sai didn’t have any experience buying birthday presents, and he didn’t want to mess up and buy something weird. Vegetables sounded weird, he knew that much.

“I like plants!” Naruto shouted as he emerged from the bushes, hands still fumbling with his zipper. Sakura and Yamato groaned in unison.

Plants. Sai felt like he could work with that.

 

At first Sai was just going to dig up a nice bush and put it in a pot, but Sakura informed him that was strange and potentially illegal depending on where he got the plant from. It would be counter-productive to get Yamato to grow Naruto a plant, because then that would just be a present from Yamato to Naruto.

And so, Sai found himself in the Yamanaka flower shop.

Ino was stationed at the counter, leaning against the wood with a book on different kunai techniques spread in front of her. She was filing her nails, dust spreading across the pages and leaving the professional photographs of kunai and diagrams looking like they were printed on a light blanket of snow.

“Hey Sai, what’s up?” she asked without looking away from her nails.

Sai smoothed his purple shirt, his only casual wear, before answering.

“Well, Naruto’s birthday is coming up and-”

“Let me guess,” Ino finally glanced at him with a smirk, “you want to get him flowers?”

“Not exactly. A potted plant. He told me he likes plants.”

Ino frowned. “That’s a lot less romantic.” Sai frowned back at her in response. Now he was confused.

Ino waved her hand towards a back corner of the shop. Sai wandered that way and quickly realized he was in over his head.

The corner was packed full of haphazard tables and shelves holding plant after plant after plant. None of them had any labels, and Sai was fairly certain that a more attentive shopkeep would be offering him assistance.

However, Ino sort of scared him, so he decided to leave her be.

The first plant he looked at had long leaves like overgrown spades of grass. They were yellow at the edges and green at the center. Sai cocked his head and stared at it for a moment before deciding he was pretty sure it was ugly.

The next one had huge spade-shaped leaves. The veins were outlined in white. The plant looked vaguely familiar, and after a moment of rubbing his thumb across a leaf Sai remembered that some of them had grown near the cabin where he and Shin lived as children, and that the plant was very poisonous.

No poisonous plants for Naruto. Sakura had made him promise.

The next plant was short and significantly less grand than the other two in terms of leaf-size, but it had wonderful purple blooms that were nearly the exact same color of his shirt. Sai held the hem of his shirt up to the flowers for a moment to admire the matching hue, then decided that purple wasn’t a very Naruto color.

At that time, Sai saw a little glass house perched on one of the taller shelves. It took a bit of stretching and balance to reach it, but once Sai pulled the terrarium down he decided it was perfect.

The leaves were a wonderful apple green, and the veins were a warm brown. The leaves’ texture reminded Sai of a cat’s tongue, and when Sai opened the lid of the terrarium to stick a finger in and feel it, he was happily proven right.

“That’s a _Pilea involucrate_ ,” Ino shouted across the shop, “also known as Friendship plant.”

Sai smiled down at the little plant in his hand. Perfect.

However, he stopped smiling when Ino calculated the total for him.

“Why is this little plant so expensive?” Sai asked.

Ino tapped the glass terrarium. “The plant isn’t much, but the terrarium’s a bit pricey.”

Sai frowned at the glass house. “Can I just get the plant?”

Ino shook her head, her long blonde hair swishing from side to side and nearly knocking into a hanging vine behind her. “Not if you want it to live. This little buddy needs high humidity, and he’s not going to get that without a terrarium.”

“Can I get a discount because I’m cute?” Sai asked. 

“You only get a cute discount if you’re cuter than me,” Ino cackled and sent him out the door empty handed.

 

The posters had turned out fairly well, Sai decided as he hung the last one on the open mission bulletin board outside the hokage’s office. They included all the important information (Sai, attractive local artist, moderately priced commissions) as well as demonstrated his artistic skills (a still life of a broken beer bottle and a sock, inspired by what he found in the gutter outside his apartment). And with luck (Sakura politely said her fingers were crossed, whatever that meant), he would start making more money soon enough.

The first commission was a weird one. Ino wanted a painting of her cat. However, it took Sai the better part of the afternoon to find the cat in the first place. His name was Monster Truck and he was a tom cat that lived in the alley behind Ino’s house, and Ino was really the only person he acknowledged.

Sai wasn’t quite sure how exactly this cat belonged to Ino, but after getting thoroughly scratched and mauled, Sai was certain he remembered enough about the feline to paint its likeness with reasonable accuracy. Although Ino hadn’t specified a background, he painted a field of purple flowers.

Of course once Kiba heard that Sai had painted Monster Truck he demanded a painting of Akamaru. The dog was considerably more cooperative, which was nice, but Kiba wanted Akamaru wearing a gold crown, which was odd.

The third commission was more along the lines of what Sai had been expecting. The jonin captain of Team 8 wanted Sai to paint her a portrait of the now-deceased captain of Team 10. Sai wasn’t quite sure why Kurenai wanted a painting of a fallen comrade, and it took Sakura explaining it to him in hushed tones for Sai to understand why the woman had cried when she handed over a picture of his subject.

Sai wasn’t as experienced in painting people as he was at other things, but he tried his best. Kurenai liked the painting, she assured him, and she patted her belly before handing him his payment.

 

Sakura set down her bottle of beer on the counter of the bar and folded her arms. She was only drinking beer now because she felt like breaking the rules, and also because Sai was old enough to buy her a beer.

“So how much have you got?” she asked. Sunlight was filtering in through the slatted windows, illuminating all the dust motes in the nearly empty bar.

Sai kept counting out the bills and spreading them across the counter, careful not to set any of them in the wet spots being left by Sakura’s bottle or his Nanakusa Island iced tea.

“Not quite enough,” Sai sighed, “and I haven’t gotten any commission offers for days, not since Ebisu canceled Konohamaru’s request for ‘a hot lady with big tiddies.’”

Sakura nodded sadly and took another sip of her illicit beer.

The barstool next to Sai scraped against the wood floor and someone flopped down next to him. Out of the corner of his eye, Sai could see a fluffy mass of grey.

“Hey Kakashi,” Sakura said, and she held up her beer bottle for a second before taking another sip.

“I could say that only one of you is old enough to legally drink, but I also don’t care,” Kakashi said. He raised a finger and nodded at the bartender, who ignored him and continued drying off an already dry glass. 

Sai began recounting his money and nodded.

“So you’re still doing commissions, yeah?” Kakashi asked. 

Sai set down his money and sat up straighter. “Are you interested in commissioning something? I can paint portraits, still lives, or really anything you want me to.”

“Anything?” Kakashi asked.

Sai couldn’t make out any expression Kakashi was making. Kakashi was sitting with his covered eye towards Sai, but Sai was pretty sure Kakashi’s eyebrow was raised.

“Anything,” Sai assured him, and Kakashi began outlining what he wanted. Sai pulled a notebook out of a pocket in his crop top and started taking notes while Sakura made gagging noises and asked the bartender for another beer.

 

When Sai first asked Captain Yamato if he would model for him, Yamato gave Sai a funny look and asked why. Sai was sworn to secrecy, he explained, but it had to do with his commissions. Yamato opened and closed his mouth a few times before waving his hands in the air and walking away without a word. When Sai described his behavior to Sakura, she said he was flustered, an emotion people experience when they are embarrassed or when they simultaneously shit their pants and drop their kunai while on a mission. Sai took Sakura’s fourth beer away and helped her walk to his house, where he let her take a late-afternoon nap in his bed.

Luckily for Sai, Yamato was fairly easy to track while in the confines of Konoha. He spent a fair amount of time laying in the grass next to the park duck pond reading a book that seemed to be about Heian-era architecture.

Sai sat in a tree and made careful character study sketches detailing how broad Yamato’s shoulders were, his height, and the approximate messiness of his hair.

After that, Yamato went grocery shopping. Sai was able to capture Yamato’s likeness in profile while he investigated and finally selected the best bunch of leeks. However, Yamato nearly caught sight of Sai after that, so he had to dive behind the kumquat display and hold his breath for a few minutes.

When Yamato was choosing a shampoo, Sai snuck to the other side of the display and moved the bottles around until he had a somewhat clear view of Yamato’s furrowed eyebrow and narrowed eyes. Apparently Yamato found shampoo confusing, and Sai was so intent on drawing Yamato’s nose that he very nearly missed the fact that Yamato was buying dog shampoo despite not owning a dog.

However, Sai was discovered while Yamato was looking at the personal lubricants. Yamato’s face turned red and he sputtered a little, nearly dropping his shopping basket, so Sai busied himself taking notes on the toothpaste and pretended to have not seen Yamato. It seemed to have worked, because when Sai looked up from his detailed drawing of Colgate Total Advanced Deep Clean toothpaste, Yamato was gone.

After that, Sai went home, a vision in his mind and art itching in his fingertips. While Sakura snored and drooled, flopped across his bed, Sai went to work.

It took a few days for Sai to be ready to present his newest piece to Kakashi. Sakura had woken up from the acrid smell of acrylics and immediately thrown up, which she had attributed to a combination of her hangover and the painting she saw when she opened her eyes. Sai took that as a hint that he should lighten the green tones, which took him an extra day of correcting before he was ready to start on shadowing and detailing.

 

Kakashi’s apartment had been difficult to find, in large part because Kakashi hadn’t given Sai his address and Sai had to look it up in the public records.

The apartment complex was nice, Sai decided. Nicer than his. It made sense, Sai figured, because Kakashi probably made more money than him. It was difficult lugging the painting, wrapped in butcher’s paper (Sakura had assured Sai the element of surprise would be nice, and also that he shouldn’t carry it unwrapped through the streets because small children might see), up three flights of stairs. But Sai did it without dropping the painting once, even when one of the older women who lived in the building passed him five times on the stairs. Sai wasn’t quite sure why she kept going up and down the stairs until he realized that she was looking at his butt.

Sai did have a cute butt, he knew this.

There was a small potted plant sitting outside the door, and the welcome mat was fairly clean and had paw prints intentionally printed on it. Sai frowned and double checked the address in his notebook. The paw prints felt right, since Kakashi was a dog ninja and all, but beyond that it felt too neat and orderly and homey for it to belong to Kakashi.

But the address was right, so Sai propped the painting against the wall and knocked on the door.

A few minutes passed (and Sai had begun weighing the pros and cons of knocking again) before Yamato opened the door, shirtless and wearing only dog-print pajama pants, and blinked at Sai for a few seconds. Sai blinked back at him, hand resting on the frame of his painting.

“You don’t live here,” Sai finally said.

Yamato put his hand on his hip. “Yes I do.”

“No, Kakashi lives here,” Sai insisted.

Yamato threw his head back and groaned. “We both live here. We’re, um, roommates.”

“Roommates?” Sai asked. “That sounds nice.”

“Yes, it is. Um. Nice. How can I help you, Sai?”

Sai picked up the painting and held it up for Yamato to see.

“Nice butcher paper,” Yamato said, “I know I didn’t commission anything, so I take it Kakashi did?”

Sai nodded, then asked, “Can I come in?”

Yamato groaned again and moved to the side. “You realize that it’s only seven in the morning, right?”

Sai nodded and stepped inside, his painting tucked under his arm.

It was a very cute apartment, Sai immediately decided. The front room was the kitchen / dining room combination, and the counters were clean and clear except for an attractive wooden bread box and some jars full of flour and sugar. The table itself was also clean, empty and holding a lovely orange vase with some orchids.

“I’m going to go get Kakashi, you can take a seat at the table. Sorry, we’re not exactly used to entertaining people here.” Yamato scratched the back of his head for a moment and shrugged before disappearing through the dark doorway across from the refrigerator.

Sai wasn’t quite sure why Yamato felt like he should find visiting the apartment entertaining, but he was certainly fascinated. The walls of the apartment seemed blank, but there was a bookcase stacked full of books and decorative shuriken and a beat-down couch that looked very comfortable. The home had a warm feeling to it that made Sai smile.

Grumbly noises came from the doorway, and then Kakashi himself appeared. He was wearing a pair of boxers too big for him and his standard mission shirt, mask pulled up over his face with some hair pinned down by the fabric.

“Sai, it’s disgustingly early. Why are you here?” Kakashi asked. He wasn’t wearing his headband, so Sai could see Kakashi’s scar. His sharingan eye was closed, and his normal eye looked like it wanted to be closed too.

“I brought you your painting, Captain,” Sai said, and he lifted the painting onto the table, careful not to knock the vase of orchids over. "Also, why are you wearing someone else's boxers? That pair seems a bit loose on you."

"They're Tenzou's," Kakashi replied. His mask stretched as he yawned.

"That's strange, to wear Captain Yamato's underwear." 

"Strange is one word for it." Kakashi yawned again and his eye opened a little wider. “Now are you going to show us the reason you pulled us out of bed at ass o’clock am.”

“I’m not familiar with that time,” Sai admitted.

Kakashi stepped up to the table and ruffled Sai’s hair. Then he shouted across the apartment, “hey Tenzou, get in here, you’ll want to see this.”

Yamato stepped back into the kitchen, toothbrush dangling from the corner of his mouth, and spit into the kitchen sink before coming to stand next to Kakashi.

“What on earth did you commission?” Yamato asked. “Although, honestly I’m very sure I don’t want to know.”

Kakashi folded his arms across his chest and Yamato picked free they grey hair trapped by the neck of Kakashi’s shirt.

“I just felt like these walls needed to be brightened up a little, you know?” Kakashi said. Yamato shook his head, and Sai started unwrapping the painting.

 

Yamato and Kakashi stood there silently, both staring at the work. Without his headband on, Sai could see that Kakashi’s eyebrows were raised, and his eye seemed to be shinier than usual. Sai was fairly certain that was a smile, a good sign.

Yamato’s expression was harder to read, however. His eyebrows kept furrowing and unfurrowing, and he chewed on his bottom lip. Finally, his face settled on a blush akin to the one Sai had seen when Yamato saw him in the grocery store.

“Sai, why did you paint me naked?” Yamato finally asked.

Sai pulled out his notebook and reviewed the notes he had taken during his discussion with Kakashi. “Kakashi asked that I paint you naked except for an apron, standing with your back to the viewer and glancing over your shoulder-”

Yamato stopped him. “I can see that, Sai.”

Sai looked back at Yamato. “I don’t understand.”

Yamato folded his arms and turned to Kakashi, who was still seemingly smiling at the painting.

“Sai, I think this is wonderful,” Kakashi said, “you’re a very talented artist. You captured exactly what I was looking for--” Yamato interrupted Kakashi to groan “--and I love expression you gave Tenzou, even if it’s not exactly accurate.”

Sai frowned at the painting for a second. He’d only painted Yamato smiling with his eyes half-closed.

“Kakashi, no,” Yamato said firmly.

Kakashi was already at the bookcase, digging money out of a random book. “Kakashi, yes,” he replied.

“Kakashi, we are not hanging this up in the house,” Yamato said again.

Kakashi started counting the money. “But I wanted something lovely to put on the walls, and honestly, what could be better than your ass?” Kakashi asked.

Sai blinked a few times and Yamato groaned before leaving the room. Kakashi pressed a wad of cash into Sai’s hand and pointed him to the door.

“Now you go buy the loud birthday boy a nice plant,” he said, and closed the door behind Sai with a soft click.

 

Sai couldn’t find the terrarium in the corner of the flower shop, and he could feel his skin get cold and sweaty. The Friendship plant was perfect, and now it wasn’t on its shelf. Sai frowned.

“Are you Sai?” the man at the counter asked. He had long blonde hair like Ino, and Sai guessed the man was her dad.

Sai went to the counter and continued frowning. “Yes, I’m Sai. I’m on Team 7 while Ino Yamanaka is on Team 10. Where did the Friendship plant go?”

The man laughed and picked up something from the windowsill behind him. The terrarium, safe and sound with the plant, and a note in curly handwriting that said “Customer Hold: Sai. Customer approved for cute discount, per Ino.”

 

Naruto loved the plant, and even read the care instructions Ino had written out in a steady hand with purple ink.

**Author's Note:**

> The dog shampoo is for Kakashi.


End file.
